Twelve Theory
by Tiinabelle
Summary: Written when all we had of TS was the jacket blurb...
1. Chapter 1

Standard disclaimer applies: Not my characters, not making any money, yada yada...

Twelve Theory

Stephanie struggled upward through several layers of consciousness before realizing what had awakened her. She blinked in the darkness as she tried to locate her cell phone by sound. Finally awake enough to make an honest effort, she reached for the phone with a grimace, intending to give whoever was on the other end a piece of her mind.

Until she saw the caller id. Hesitant now, she answered with a question.

"Ranger?"

"Babe."

"Are you okay?"

"I was about to ask you the same question."

"I'm fine, what's going on?"

"I need you to do something for me." His voice was firm and commanding. It never occurred to her to say no, or even question him.

"Anything."

His tone softened considerably. "Get your gun out of the cookie jar and in your hand. Tank's on his way over. Don't let anyone in but him, and stay in his sight. I'll be there soon."

She was scared now, but put her trust in Ranger. "Soon? I thought you were in Miami."

"My plane landed a couple of minutes ago. We'll talk when I get there."

She started to ask what had happened, but he'd already disconnected. Sighing, Steph shuffled into the kitchen to get her gun. Halfway back to the bedroom, she thought to check that it was loaded. It was, though she had no memory of doing so.

Shaking her head with a smile, she decided she'd better dress if Tank was coming over. She threw on a pair of jeans and a stretchy T-shirt, and was just wrangling her hair into a ponytail when there was a soft knock on the door.

_Must be Tank, _she thought to herself. But what if it wasn't? Ranger had warned her not to let anyone in but Tank. Taking a deep breath, she held her gun by her thigh as she approached the door.

"Who is it?" she asked quietly, her hand tense on the gun.

"It's Tank, Miss Plum. Ranger was supposed to call and tell you to expect me."

She opened the door, relieved. "It's Steph, and he did. Come on in."

Tank smiled his approval of the gun in her hand before locking the door behind him.

She looked up at him. "Tank, what the hell is going on?"

He stilled completely. The silence dragged on for a few minutes before he finally said "It's not my place to tell you."

She stared at him, annoyed, before giving up on getting any information from him. "Fine. Want some coffee?"

He nodded as he answered. "Coffee would be great."

She was grateful to have something to do, as she'd never been good at waiting. She yawned, and suddenly realized she had no idea what time it was. "Hey Tank, what time is it?"

He paused very briefly before answering. "Almost four o'clock."

She turned to stare at him. "In the _morning?_"

Tank grinned over at her. "Yes."

"Oh hell."

She poured coffee for each of them. He nodded his thanks, and she began to feel awkward just standing here in the kitchen.

Setting her coffee down, she looked up at Tank "Ranger said I'm not to be out of your sight. Will you come with me while I pack a bag?"

She would have thought it would be harder than that to startle one of Ranger's men. The thought made her grin. Tank was still staring at her. "You're packing a bag?"

Slowly, she explained herself. "Whatever this is, it's serious enough for Ranger to fly back from Miami. It's serious enough to drag both of us out of bed at this ungodly hour; me to arm myself, and you to come guard me. Do you really think he's just going to come over, explain everything, and let me go back to bed?"

Tank was shaking his head. "No. I just expected more argument from you."

Steph shrugged. "Hard for me to argue when I don't have a clue what's going on. Besides, I'm trying to learn to pick my battles."

Tank almost smiled. "So what can I do to help?"

"Just come with me and stay out of my way."

She hurriedly threw clothes and toiletries into a duffle bag, then glanced around the room, trying to figure out what she might have missed. Giving up, she deposited the bag next to her front door and headed back into the kitchen, Tank trailing behind her.

She warmed her coffee, then stood watching Rex's cage over the rim as she sipped. She took a zip lock bag out of her cupboard and loaded it with hamster nuggets, a few grapes, and carrot sticks. Steph put the bag on top of the cage before moving the cage nearer the door.

She was running out of distractions. She turned to Tank and asked, "Now what?"

The words were barely out of her mouth before Tank was shoving her roughly behind him, his gun appearing in his hand before she'd had a chance to blink. Steph just had time to note that she could hear the locks tumbling on her front door before she heard a welcome voice.

"It's Ranger. I'm coming in."

Tank relaxed a little, and let her come out from behind him before meeting Ranger at the door.

"Problems?" Ranger asked his friend.

Tank shook his head. "Ram's got the fire escape. I'll be on the front door. We need to move fast."

"Agreed. Thanks."

Tank walked out the front door. Ranger locked it behind him before turning to Stephanie. Indicating the coffee cup in her hand, he asked "Is there any more of that?"

Her eyes widened, but she poured him a cup without comment. He accepted the cup, and used his free hand to pull her to him. Steph wrapped her arms around him, silent. As curious as she was about whatever had caused all of this, a large part of her wasn't sure she wanted to know.

After several minutes, she pulled back enough to say "Okay, what's going on?"

His hand slipped from her shoulder to grasp her hand. He answered as he led her to the living room. "That's going to take a little time to explain. Why don't we get comfortable."

She was growing more nervous by the second. Ranger looked...grim. That couldn't be a good sign.

They sat on the couch, facing each other. Stephanie couldn't stand the tension or the waiting, and blurted "What happened?!"

Ranger's jaw clenched, but he met her eyes. "My daughter's been kidnapped."

Stephanie pressed a hand to her chest. "What? Oh God...how can I help?"

"We need to keep you safe, and I need you to pay attention to your 'Spidey Sense.' There is reason to believe you're in danger as well."

"I don't understand, do you know who took her?"

"Yes and no."

"I'm getting more confused by the minute."

"There are indications that Talia was taken by my wife."

"Your..." she couldn't say the word. "I thought you were divorced!"

"Not exactly."


	2. Chapter 2

Standard disclaimer applies: Not my characters, not making any money, etc, etc.

Twelve Theory Part 2

She knew he was still speaking, but she couldn't hear him over the screaming inside her head. Ranger was MARRIED?! Christ, no wonder his 'lifestyle didn't lend itself to relationships'! That meant...she had been the other woman. Her heart was galloping in her chest, and she was having a hard time catching her breath.

"Stephanie...STEPHANIE!"

His shout brought her back to herself, and she looked at him, willing herself not to cry.

His voice was soft now, comforting. "Babe, do you really believe I would cheat on a wife? Especially with you?"

_No, _her mind answered instantly. Her panic and rage receded enough that she could function, and she took a deep breath. "What did you mean by 'not exactly?'."

"I'll need to start at the beginning." He took a breath, and started to speak, not meeting her eyes. "Angelina and I used to work together when I first left the service. It wasn't long before we were partners at home as well as at work. After we married, she wanted to start a family right away. When we found out she was pregnant, she gave up fieldwork. She told me she had every intention of returning to it. Once Talia was a year old, she did."

He paused. This was obviously difficult for him to talk about. "We never took field missions together, or even at the same time. If things went badly, we wanted to make sure that one of us was here for Talia. On her third mission after she went back..." he trailed off.

"Ranger, we don't have to do this right now." She could see that he was hurting, and didn't want to put him through this anymore.

He shook his head. "No. It's important that you hear this."

Still, he took another minute to get back to the story. "When they first lost contact with her, no one was overly concerned. She was in a part of the world where communications were often sketchy, so..."

He took a deep breath. "I didn't hear anything about it until she was officially 'overdue'. Soon overdue became 'presumed missing'."

Ranger closed his eyes. "My sister Celia and her husband took care of Talia so I could look for 'Lina. I looked, Tank looked, Les looked...Bobby was still active duty then, and he used some of his contacts to look. We called in all the favors we could think of, and...nothing. There was no sign of her. For over a year, we kept at it. I kept thinking that if she were dead, surely we'd find evidence of _that_, at least." He shook his head. "Eventually, we ran out of ideas. The..uh, an agency we worked for officially listed her as 'killed in the line of duty'."

Stephanie put her arms around him. "I'm so sorry."

He held her tight as he continued. "I was..a bit of a mess for a while. I blamed myself, the agency, everyone. I was drinking heavily, and was told by the agency that my services were no longer required. Talia was being well taken care of, and I spent several months just drifting from place to place. Tank caught up with me, and kicked my ass repeatedly until I started to make an effort to get my shit together."

"And Talia?" she asked.

"By the time I was ready to go back to my life, it had gone on without me. Talia was happy and thriving. She adored her parents, and they were Celia and Eduardo. I didn't feel like I had the right to interfere with that. She'd already had the rug yanked out from under her once. I didn't have the heart to do it again. I allowed Celia to adopt her. Talia knows I'm her father, but my role in her life is more 'favorite uncle' than dad. Eduardo's a great dad for her, and she never has to worry that one day he'll leave on a mission and never come back."

"I started over in Trenton. I had lived here in my teens and still had family here, so it seemed a logical choice. Eventually Tank and the rest of the guys joined me. I tried to leave the past where it belonged."

Stephanie nodded. "Now tell me the current situation."

He squeezed her tighter. "Five days ago, I got a frantic phone call from Celia. Talia was supposed to be home by six. When she didn't show up, Celia started calling her friends. Most of them had seen her earlier in the day, but not for hours. She called the hospitals, and she called me."

"What did you find?" she asked quietly.

"A wild goose chase. Whoever has her, they know me. They know how I work. They made it just tough enough that I believed we were getting somewhere with our search. Every time I thought we had a line on whoever it was, something would be delivered to Rangeman."

"Like?"

"Angelina's wedding ring. Pictures. Notes. The notes were taunting, but they also had information in them that no one could know but 'Lina."

"Jesus." She looked up at him, curious. "You don't think it's her, do you?"

He shook his head. "I...don't know. I can't imagine it. If 'Lina were still alive, I can't imagine that we wouldn't have found a trace of her. And this? No. I can't imagine her doing this at all. Even if she'd have blamed me for not finding her, even if she wanted to hurt me, I don't believe she'd willingly hurt Talia. If 'Lina had been held captive by one of my enemies, they could have gotten all the information they needed, eventually. All I really know is that I'm _supposed_ to think it's her."

"To throw you off balance?"

"Yes."

"So, how do I fit in to all this?"

"Yesterday, we got information again. This time, the pictures were current."

Stephanie got a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach. "Pictures of what?"

"Of us." Ranger looked at her steadily. "You and I walking out of the bonds office. Us together in the alley. There was one of me on the plane to Miami. And of you, asleep on the couch."

"Shit" she whispered.

"Yeah." He was quiet for a minute, letting her absorb it all.

"Was there a note?" she finally asked.

He almost nodded. "A note telling me that dividing my attention would get someone killed. And another taunt. 'See you in Trenton'."

"What do you need me to do?"

"Pack some clothes for a few days. Come to Rangeman, help me find my daughter. And stay safe doing it."

"How can I help?"

"Babe, I told you, these people are good. And they know how I work. They're prepared for anything I might think of. We have all the information we've gathered so far at the office. I want you to look through it. I need you to think around corners for me. Together, I think we've got a better shot of surprising them into a mistake."

"I'm already packed, and so is Rex."

He raised an eyebrow and she shrugged. "As soon as I heard your voice I knew I wasn't going to be allowed to stay here."

He winced internally at her phrasing. "Babe, I will not allow another woman I love to be hurt, or worse. Not if I have any chance of preventing it."

She nodded, hearing the guilt he still carried for Angelina's death. "Ranger. You don't want to hear this, but Angelina chose to go back into the field. She was good, right?"

He nodded once, briefly.

"It was her choice. She had a job to do. One she was good at. You can't blame yourself."

"I've tried to tell myself that. I had a lot more field experience than she did. A lot more opportunities to make enemies. I keep thinking that..."

"You don't know that. It's entirely possible that whatever happened to her was because of her job, her enemies. If it had been someone wanting to hurt you, they would have wanted you to know it."

"Maybe. If I could have just found out _what _happened."

She suddenly understood why he kept his distance from her, why he thought he wasn't 'family material', everything. She'd never thought about Ranger being vulnerable. But the people he cared about made him so. He'd already learned that lesson the hard way, if only in his own mind. _Let's not have another lesson now, okay God?_

It had been a long time since she'd prayed, but for Ranger and his daughter, she'd try. She stood suddenly and held out her hand. Ranger allowed her to pull him up. "We'll talk about this another time. Right now, let's go find your daughter."

"Babe."

_THE END_


End file.
